TODAY sees the world’s fastest man Usain Bolt putting his immense talent on display against the best at the 100-metre Diamond League showdown in Stockholm, Sweden. Two years on from his major triumph at the Beijing Olympics, where he smashed the world record for the 100 metre dash while picking up three gold medals, he still remains the man to beat and one of the planet’s most recognised and accomplished sports personalities.
However, there is this nagging concern surrounding his earning power. Some estimate that Bolt earns around US$9 million a year from his race fees and endorsements combined. This pales in comparison to the earnings of major footballers, golfers, boxers, basketball players and top-flight tennis players. To be known and universally acknowledged as the fastest man on the planet certainly warrants earnings that compare favourably with the best in the world of sport. To repeat the feat and hold that title over the last few years underscores it.
It is said that Tiger Woods has earned US$1 billion from golf and his earnings far surpass that of Bolt. Woods’ fall from grace has meant that many sponsors have pulled away, but still his take-home pay puts him in the top league of professional sportsmen. Yes, Bolt has not been around as long, but he is arguably a better bet than Woods. Tall, athletic, personable, charismatic, articulate, cool yet modest, he packs more firepower for advertisers than the geeky Woods. Bolt is clean-cut and has managed to avoid any salacious and lurid headlines.
Some argue that he is not that well-known in the United States and Europe and so his drawing power is less potent. That is spurious. Why? Because sport is universal. He can do for athletics what David Beckham has done for football.
“This man sits on top of a six-billion-person pyramid. Everyone in the world knows how to run… This man is the fastest,” was how Usain Bolt was introduced at a speaking engagement in Europe last year, according to Britain’s Times newspaper.
According to the article, entitled “Usain Bolt Grounded While Popularity Soars”: “Everyone in the world knows how to run. Indeed so. Which is why Bolt, with three gold medals, became the man of the Beijing Olympic Games, overshadowing poor Michael Phelps, who won eight. Not everyone in the world knows how to swim, though. Swimming is a complicated, difficult to do; difficult to watch.
“But running is elemental, and Bolt made it look more elemental than it has for a long time. He isn’t pumped up, veins bulging, eyes wild, as several recent winners (some of whom have been stripped of their medals following positive drug tests) have been.
“His musculature looks to be within natural, albeit impressive boundaries. In a sport rife with cheats, Bolt is clean. The Jamaicans were repeatedly tested in Beijing, targeted essentially. They came up negative every time.”
This says it all, and states the case for why Bolt should be one of the world’s top earning sports personalities.
Closer to home, it has always remained a mystery why many Jamaican companies have not used him in their advertising campaigns. His appeal goes across all demographic groups reaching into international markets. The thinking may well be that his fees prove prohibitive, but that may be a little short-sighted, because he is the best ambassador Jamaica has right now. Digicel, as usual, were astute enough to identify the talent and offered support and helped nurture it. Today the company reaps the benefit of its foresight as Bolt peers down from their billboards. Jamaican companies should not continue to take a Third World approach to advertising in a globalised world. Bolt will come at a premium, and rightfully so, but companies’ products and services will undoubtedly get a boost from an association with him. The notion that he is too big for us now is an erroneous one. He is the country’s favourite son whose accomplishments mark him as the best in the world, again and again.
According to The Times’ Robert Crampton, Bolt has said he wants to be the first runner to earn the sort of money paid to top footballers in Europe and basketball and baseball stars in the United States. His aim, he says,… “is to make as much money out of this as possible before I retire”. And why not? He has proven that the Olympic Games were no flash in the pan and he has built upon that.
Puma would do well to make him their leading ambassador, very much like Nike did with the basketball star, Michael Jordan. Puma comes behind Nike, Adidas and Reebok. Bolt may well help them change all that. When tennis star John McEnroe burst onto the scene, Nike signed him up and put him on the front line of its campaigns, thereby catapulting the brand into the public’s consciousness. It would not be wrong to say that Bolt’s appeal, two years after the Beijing games, is more of a drawing card than a young McEnroe’s was in the early eighties.
A criticism often levelled at Bolt is that he puts too much faith in his local management team and that he would fare much better with a hotshot international management staff. However, he may feel more comfortable with a team he knows well and can relate to. A source close to Bolt’s management team said, “When we are negotiating with some of the world’s top companies we are finding one standard for stars from developed countries and another for those from developing countries. It would be interesting to see what Bolt would be earning today if he was from the United States or Britain.”
Time and time again big sporting stars from the Caribbean fail to generate the earning power that many American and European stars do and it is hoped that Bolt will change that. It would be a shame if, he too, was to end his career short-changed simply because he hails from the Caribbean.
A local agent speaking with Caribbean Business Report said that Bolt is locked into existing contracts formed before his great feats and that it would be difficult to extricate himself from them now. The agent added that Bolt’s contract with Digicel may come in at less than US$1million, which was very good at the time, whereas a company like AT&T today may well be prepared to offer him US$50 million. He added that companies should now renegotiate those earlier contracts and make Bolt a far better deal, considering his exploits over the last two years.
Bolt has remained incredibly loyal to Puma despite claims that the German sporting goods company could be treating him better. It has been estimated that Bolt has generated over US$300 million for Puma. His contract with Puma comes to an end this year and claims that he may well sign a US$400-million contract may be far-fetched. It has been reported that he inked a US$3 million-a-year deal with Puma and more recently has played an integral role in the product design process. His new deal should prove more lucrative this time around. It would not be a bad idea for Puma to use him the same way that Nike used Michael Jordan to sell the brand and give it a global presence that saw it compete with, then overhaul, its then more illustrious rivals. With Tiger Woods now toxic and Le Bron James having not won anything yet, Bolt spells a great opportunity for the leaping cat to jump over its competitors.
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